I have a Dell Latitude D620 that a user in my office just recently presented me with that was having the infamous "mup.sys" problem. (i know, i know, it really isn't the mup.sys)

I removed the drive and hooked it up to my desktop via a SATA to USB adapter kit. I then ran chkdsk /r on the drive and came up with the results you see at the end of my post.

I then replaced the drive in the laptop, first booted into safe mode, surprisingly it worked. Shut it down, restarted in "normal" mode and it appears to be working fine. My concern now, after having done some exhaustive research, it that maybe the drive is beginning to fail and even after fixing the bad clusters in two files who can tell if it is just going to happen again?

Hope this helps someone! And thanks to all the other posters, well most of you, because some of you can get down right ugly. Anyway, thanks to everyone that posted constructive posts that helped me "fix" my problem.

Tony

I have a SATA hdd and an IDE dvd drive. When I replaced the nVidia IDE drivers with windows standard drivers the problem resolved.

I experienced the same issues as many posters with trying to boot, and only getting to safe mode after disabling mup in the recovery console. I restored a registary backup and made repeated changes in the bios, reseated ram and removed the cmos battery, all to no effect.

I finally found a solution by googling my specific mobo and "mup.sys".

the same problem i have
http://www.evdeneve.gen.tr

I have a HP Pavilion dv5000, was having the same problem with it rebooting constantly when trying to boot into XP. Trying to boot to safe mode was unsuccessful and the last thing I'd see was mup.sys.

Took me about 10 hours of working on this to finally figure it out. Thanks to HP chat / support system, they recommended the following fix: go into the BIOS and disable the Native SATA Support. Tried that and BAM! Booted right up. You'd think that because it has a SATA drive it'd need this BIOS option enabled... not the case. Oh well, there goes half a day of my life I'll never get back... hopefully me taking the time to post this fix will help someone else in the same boat someday.

Problem solved.
I had this problem with my computer.

Do this and remove bloody mup.sys prob.

Boot your computer with Windows XP bootable disc.(press any key to start...)
choose Recovery console.
type 1 and press enter.
you will see your prompt like c:\windows
type chkdsk /r and press enter (it will be like this c:\windows\chkdsk /r )
It will take about 15 to 20 minutes depend on size of HD but will fix all the errors from hard disk.
After finishing chkdsk,
Type Exit and press enter.
Remove your Windows Installation Disc from your computer and computer will reset.

My problem gone...

Ok, here goes, this story is long, but I also have been having the mup problem.

When I first had this problem I just reinstalled XP and started fresh, and it would repeat itself about every 6 months, but I was happy to fix it this often. Then it started getting worse and so i decided that it might be the hard drive. I replaced the hard drive. This worked for about two months and then it has started again, this time every day, meaning that I have to repair the install every day which is very very time consuming. This leads me to my next point. While I was repairing te install, I noticed that quite a number of files could not be copied, so I skipped over them. Do you think my problem might be a damaged XP CD? I am thinking I might go and get vista and hope that solves the problem, what do you all think?
Cheers.
PS. I have checked the hard drive with chkdsk and all the hard disk tools on UBCD, so I dont think its the hard drive.

i solved it but it was nothing to do with changing any file.
see my solution posted http://www.nosle.com/loc/gth/nsl_rss.jsp?href=t&a2=1228698...ed+the+mup

Very, very strange problem!

I spend few hours trying to resolve "mup.sys" problem. And the problem seems to be somewhere between software and hardware in my case.

The system freeze and don't want to be start at boot process. Of course mup.sys is the last that I see in safe mode. Disabling this service doesn't work. Change any BIOS settings also. Updating BIOS don't work. Updating graphics drivers don't work. Updating any other drivers, including motherboard drivers and USB drivers don't work - still the same. Decreasing speed of memory (in BIOS) - nothing.

BUT! I found something really, really interesting. When I unplug power wire and plug it again (or just use switch at the back of computer) - system starts ONCE without any problem! And works perfectly UNTIL i want to restart computer - then freeze at Windows boot. I can turn off or restart system using Windows START menu and front panel switch - nothing works. I must turn off power from motherboard and turn on again - and then it works. Once!

So - where is problem for real? Do anyone of you have the same problem and can try my method?

Today I will want to try following:

1. Replacing GFX card to old one.
2. Using the same HDD on another, very similar computer with the same motherboard.
3. Checking RAM.
4. Killing all people who have no experience with this problem and can't resolve problem, but trying to give some "great" advices just because want to be very helpfull.
5. The same as "4" but people who ask for hijack logs! (try to find some advices about any sys files on google - then you'll find thousand of hijack logs that every person "must show" because "incredible professional users" wants that - mostly for fun, because they have no solutions for any problems anyway).

And finally, after 2 days, I found that!

This is not (and never be) any mup or other stupid stuff problem.

Problem when system freeze at boot in this case (when last load file is "mup.sys") is problem that you can find by typing "Atheros Attansic boot problem". When you updating drivers for Attansic LAN to new Atheros (new company name) drivers, you may expect that type of hang. And this is not difficult, because as I know, new windows updates have new drivers (bad ones).

If you are expert (or not very lame) you'll can uninstall new drivers and manually install old ones (this may be difficult). Works version is Attansic 2007-03-15 (in my case). New driver version (Atheros from 2008) may hang your system.

You must have installer of Attansic drivers and make everything in specific order. You may see "no device for this driver" or similar. Just try to install using add/remove hardware, unistall hardware, using oryginal exe from Attansic driver etc. unless you'll see proper driver (Attansic, not Atheros) in device manager. And never restart system until you'll see proper driver in device manager, because after restart your system will find Atheros drivers and install again.

Good luck! Works fine in my case.

Easy way? Turn off onboard LAN in BIOS and install PCI Lan card.

And how to boot your system if still hang? Just unplug power (not only turn off by pressing button) wait a few seconds, plug power again and turn on computer. First time boot should be fine.

You don't expect that is LAN problem? I'm not surprised. In my case this starts when I replace router (!). But problem may starts random, just bad luck. Check and if you have Atheros drivers of onboard LAN - try my method.

If someone will use this method and if I help someone to resolve this problem - please write answer here.

Trying to do reformat but unable to do so. I can't get past the startup screen. It continues to scroll but never attempts to boot up. I tried booting into safe mode, safe with networking and etc. It starts to load files then i noticed it stops at MUP.sys. Any suggestions? I read a couple other related topics for this and none worked. I can't even get to the startup screen off of the restore disc. Never ran into this situation. PLEASE HELP!

PS

HD is a Toshiba MK8032GSX-(S1) HD... on a Toshiba Satellite Laptop A105-S2194 SYSTEM UNIT
MODEL # PSAA5U-00Z01C

Does anyone have any tips where I can find software(ISO, etc.) to check this with?

Any other suggestions please feel free.

THANK YOU!

sean iesean said:





How were you able to get to chkdsk?

I can't even boot from CD or even get into safe mode. I'm not able to get into any cmd prompt. BIOS doesn't even have a place for disabling anything. Just boot sequence and user pw's. Nothing. ANY ADVICE?

I removed the drive and hooked it up to my desktop via a SATA to USB adapter kit. I then ran chkdsk /r on the drive. See my post above.

Hi Manny,
If you see the normal boot, or the safemode boot (hanging at mup.sys) your system is probably NOT booting from your Windows XP CD, but trying to boot from the copy of XP already installed on your laptop (and that copy is presumably corrupted).

You should make sure your laptop BIOS is set to boot first from a CD - before trying to boot from the hard drive. It is a good idea to confirm that this is working by booting from a CD that does not give the same messages as Win XP - maybe Ubuntu Linux or a G-Parted CD (downloaded and burnt on anothe PC!!). The G-Parted CD should recognise your laptop hard drive and may give an error message if it is damaged - if it is OK, G-Parted should show the partition with a yellow area showing the area used by files.

There is a possible problem with XP on a laptop with the system automatically going into "suspend to RAM" mode, as it will then keep on booting with the same error! This can also happen on some desktop systems, and is the probable reason for on earlier posting, saying that the system booted normally if the power plug had been removed - this blanks the RAM and forces the system to boot from hard drive! The only way to do this with a laptop is to remove the battery for a few minutes. One indication of the system getting stuck in "suspend to RAM" is that the normal keys that you press to go to the BIOS setup do not work (and you may not be able to boot from CD).

If you ARE suffering from the mup.sys bug, it may help to change the BIOS setup, but you may only be able to do this if you get out of "suspend to RAM".

The normal way to reformat with the original CD is to boot from it and enter "recovery console". Help will show you commands available (including 'Format' and "Chkdsk"). Beware "Recovery CDs" supplied with some laptops, which do not have a standard copy of XP - these are usually intended to replace ALL the software on the laptop and you need to follow the laptop manufacturers instructions to use them, as the instructios vary with different models sold by the same maker!

Good luck and a Happy Christmas

Nickl

Is there any other way rather than trying to install linux to figure out if it is a bad HD?

I've tried changing the BIOS setup, but they're not many options. It's a Phoenix BIOS and already looked for updates; which are none.

Any other possible ways, such as memory check cds etc?

Tony G said:




I understand what you're saying, but currently I do not own a flash drive. I just can burn software on a CDRW and boot from cd. The laptop does not have a floppy nor do I have an external floppy drive to run a bootdisk.


OBJECTIVE: 1) to get the system to cmd prompt OR
to get it to start to windows desktop.

2) to reimage the HD


PROBLEMS:

I can not access any tangible cmd line or program to diagnose the problem.

Tell me what I can do with what I have which is burnable CDs

OR

Tell me what I need in order to diagnose it properly.


Thanks again

I have same problem.
site: http://webmastersitesi.com

Hi again Manny (and others!)

Let me repeat part of what I said in my last posting. You will not be able to boot ANY CD unless you can change the boot order of devices in your BIOS to boot from CD BEFORE trying to boot from the hard drive! Even then, your laptop may keep trying to restart Windows from the (corrupted) image stored in RAM unless you remove the laptop battery for about 5 minutes to empty the RAM!

You then have two alternatives: 1. remove the hard drive from the laptop, fit it in a USB box (or use an adaptor to plug it into a desktop system) and run chkdsk on it (this will probably fix it, but may fail) You may not want to do this if you do not want to invalidate the warranty - or you are scared of messing with hardware. 2. Persuade the system to boot from a CD and get someone to download an iso image to run whatever tests you want to. For example, you can run memory tests with a copy of The Ultimate Boot CD (download the .iso from ultimatebootcd.com) Note that YOU DO NOT HAVE TO INSTALL LINUX to run a Linux-based bootable CD like gparted or UBCD - but this can only be done if your system will boot from a CD!
If you can boot from a 'live Linux' CD, you should also be able to boot from a GENUINE ORIGINAL Microsoft XP CD - not a recovery CD as provided by a laptop manufacturer - and this will alow you to run the Recovery Console (giving a command prompt to run chkdsk etc (try help for other options).

There is a third option, if you can get someone to build it for you on a desktop and that is the UBCD4Win (ubcd4win.com) which will allow you to do anything you like with your hard drive, but it requires a genuine XP CD (preferably the same version as that on the laptop or XP Pro). This will give similar options to what you can do by connecting your hard drive to a desktop, in an external box, but without having to remove the drive!
Once again none of the options using a bootable CD will be useable if you cannot get the laptop to boot from a CD !!!

Read my post from April (on page 37) for further info on what can go wrong with your BIOS & registry, to cause such problems - you may still have to flash your BIOS to resolve your problems and now that most systems have no floppy drive, this often means you need to do this with - guess what - a BOOTABLE CD!!

Happy Christmas
Nick

Nick Law said:





Nick(and others)

Already tried the first two options such as changing the boot sequence to boot from CD.
It goes to the blue screen interface and gives you the options before going into partition.

Press ENTER for installation of windows

Press R to repair Windows

Press ESC to exit utility

Obviously, ESC will take me out of the utility and is the only option that works.

Basically, I have ruled out all possible hardware problems by switching the hard drive into a samilar laptop that is working fine.

Not saying this is the only problem for everyone in this case of the mup.sys like someone said before it has nothing to do with it.

Simply to put: the hard drive is faulty and needs replacement.


YES! The HD is faulty.

Memory is fine, because I wouldn't be able to get to the startup screen.

If it was RAM memory you would hear beeps upon starting up your computer
'beep wait beep beep wait beep'

Ruled out.

More than likely you don't need to flash your BIOS, this is hardly ever needed to do.

Usually done when chipsets or processors and other integrated technology is replaced.

I appreciate all of the above mentioned possible diagnoses, but this is the problem(in my case)

Merry Christmas all